Jason Momoa, star of ‘Aquaman’ and the upcoming ‘Chief of War,’ recently shared a gripping story of a life-threatening surfing incident on the ‘Smartless’ podcast.
In an episode released on Monday, Momoa recounted the traumatic experience he encountered at the notorious Jaws surf break in Maui, which left him questioning whether he would survive.
Describing the harrowing event, he explained how he and his friends had paddled about 13 miles down the coast, finding themselves nearly a mile offshore when disaster struck.
Momoa recalled, “My leash snapped. It’s so windy on Maui, and so the board just went. I couldn’t even see it anymore.”
During his conversation with podcast hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes, he elaborated on his near-drowning experience that unfolded when he was caught in the treacherous waves and unable to swim back to safety.
“When you’re in that position of almost drowning, what is your brain … you know it’s happening?” Hayes asked, probing how Momoa managed to cope in such a dire situation.
Momoa responded, “I was trained pretty well, so it was fine. It’s actually a place called S–tf–ks because the water pulls out, and it just pulls you out while you get hit with these waves.”
He vividly described how he found himself stuck in the outer reef, where the chaos of the waves made visibility impossible for his friends.
With waves towering over him, he noted that at one point, the force of the water was so strong it dislodged his shorts. “The waves were so big; it took my shorts off. They were so f–king big,” he stated.
As panic set in, Momoa’s thoughts turned to his young daughter, who was just three months old at the time.
He recounted reaching a point of exhaustion, where his limbs felt immobile through the effort of fighting the relentless surf.
“I literally gave up and I’m screaming inside,” he recalled, describing an unexpected stroke of fortune—a sudden touch of the reef beneath his foot.
He exclaimed, “I don’t know if it was a f–king whale or just one rock, but I just reached down, grabbed it, I jump up, I get hit by another wave.”
With the reef beneath his feet, he felt a sense of desperation, just trying to keep his lips above the water to breathe.
“I could barely put my lips above it just to breathe and get a break, but I had already given up, so it’s like, you’ve already given up and died and have a second chance at it.”
Momoa remained in that precarious position for another ten minutes before his friend arrived, riding a surfboard and towing the other one.
Following the ordeal, he detailed the painful journey home, noting that his feet were left bloodied from the coral.
In a striking reflection on his life choices, Momoa shared that this terrifying experience prompted him to quit smoking—a habit he had been struggling to break for years.
“I used to smoke like two, three packs a day. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t do it again because I just, I gave up. Like, I gave up my life,” he confessed.
The life-altering experience left a lasting mark on him, ultimately becoming the catalyst for a significant change in his lifestyle.
image source from：thewrap
